Gabryel Karolin said:
I wouldnt say Judaism is lame, in fact if I were to go suddenly religious I would pick Judaism (because its the "original" monotheistic faith). However, I dont think that Judaism has had enough influence in the world to be in the game, its never been the major religion anywhere except for a small piece of land in the Middle-East (and possiby parts of Ethiopia). As mentioned both Islam and Christianity comes from Judaism, but thats not really an argument for having it in.
Id much rather see something like Sun Cult in the game as thats something which has been practiced pactically around the world with Incans, the Romans Sol Invictus cult, in my own Scandinavia and many other countries.
Paganism is *not* a religion, its a biased Christian name for a myriad of faiths that have nothing to do with eachother.
I dissagree with this, a religion is a philosphy, in a way. Also by your logic Japan never waged any wars.
here's one def. for religion:
Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
or
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion
while philosphy is:
Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
or
The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
the point is, while a religion will contain many elements of philosophy and philosophy in many aspects is like a religion - there r some slight core differences between religion and a moral code, such as confucianism. as we can see w/ human nature, once u place a deity, often w/ a purpose, and ends, there is a sense of fundamentalism that can occur that has lead to many things, whether they be works of art and literature, or wars and genocide. confucianism while affecting as many people as religions, and as much as it can be just as much a part of one's life, isn't quite the same as buddhism or islam, in terms of the role it plays.
japan didn't wage wars based on philosophy or moral codes - their basis for wars w/ korea, china, russia, etc. was on a completely different rationale. (altho if u want to u can say that their belief in the deity of the emperor provided some basis/support for wars - in which it wud be classified as a religion, and not a philosophy)
now in terms of judaism,
while those who adhere to judaism may not be as "large" in number as other religions, the fact remains that judaism has played a pivotal role in human history. the fact that it did lay grounds for two other religions is in fact very important. it was one of the first religions to become monotheistic, and its role, whether it was during the babylonian captivity, or wwii, or the russian exodus, or the creation of israel (and hostility from arab nations today) has had huge implications.
size shudn't necessarily define things - otherwise by those standards, certain civ's shud be taken out 'cuz they weren't "as large" as other civs. but they're in because the role they played in history was large and had a huge effect to the people and civs around them.